Legal Definitions - pad

To pad, in a legal context, refers to the practice by a legal professional (such as a lawyer or paralegal) of intentionally overstating or inflating the number of hours they claim to have worked on a client's case or matter. This results in the client being billed for more time than was actually spent.

Here are some examples to illustrate this concept:

• Example 1: A junior associate at a law firm spends 45 minutes drafting a simple email to a client. However, when recording their time for billing purposes, they log 1.5 hours for "client communication."

  Explanation: This demonstrates padding because the associate has intentionally exaggerated the time spent on the task, billing the client for an hour and a half when only 45 minutes were actually worked.

• Example 2: A paralegal is tasked with organizing a large set of discovery documents. They complete the physical organization and indexing in approximately 6 hours. To meet their firm's daily billable hour target, they record 8 hours for the task on the client's invoice.

  Explanation: In this scenario, the paralegal is padding their hours by adding two extra hours to the time spent on document organization, leading to an inflated bill for the client.

• Example 3: A senior partner reviews a brief prepared by an associate, a process that takes them 20 minutes. Instead of billing for the actual time, the partner rounds up and bills the client for a full hour of "brief review and revision."

  Explanation: This is an instance of padding where the partner has significantly overstated the time spent on a task by rounding up excessively, thereby increasing the client's bill beyond the actual work performed.